China starts large military drills around Taiwan

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China has started more large military exercises around Taiwan, confirming fears that Beijing would ratchet up tensions days after a National Day address by Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te.

The People’s Liberation Army said on Monday that it had sent ground, naval, air and missile forces to practise “combat readiness patrols, blockade of key ports and areas, assault on maritime and ground targets and seizure of comprehensive superiority”.

The drill “also serves as a stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces”, the PLA Eastern Theater Command said in a statement.

The PLA exercises come after a speech last Thursday by Lai — whom Beijing has denounced as a “dangerous separatist” — in which he asserted Taiwan’s sovereignty but also appealed to China to work with him for peace.

He also highlighted the 1911 uprising that overthrew Chinese imperial rule as part of Taiwan’s history, in an overture to those Taiwanese who embrace a Chinese identity.

Aides of Lai described his speech as a gesture of goodwill towards Beijing, while foreign observers viewed it as restrained and moderate.

“There were times Beijing reciprocated Taipei’s restraint. This could have been one of them. But they’re choosing a different path,” Rush Doshi, who worked on China in US President Joe Biden’s National Security Council until earlier this year, posted on X on Monday.

Later on Monday, Lai’s predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, is to speak at a conference in Prague as part of a week-long trip to Europe, which Beijing has also publicly opposed.

The PLA called its drills “Joint Sword 2024 B”, framing them as a sequel to manoeuvres organised three days after Lai’s inauguration in May.

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and threatens to annex it by force if Taipei refuses to submit under its control indefinitely. Beijing regularly uses military manoeuvres, and propaganda about them, to try to intimidate the Taiwanese public and put a strain on Taiwan’s armed forces.

Taiwanese and foreign security officials and military experts have said many of the PLA’s moves are exercises that it would be conducting anyway.

The PLA has sharply stepped up manoeuvres near Taiwanese waters and airspace since Lai took office.

Last week, senior Taiwanese officials said the PLA had kept an unusually high number of ships out at sea, suggesting it would peg the final big manoeuvre of the exercise season to Lai’s National Day address.

“The fact that they called the drill after the inauguration in May ‘Joint Sword 2024 A’ also meant that they needed to hold another one called ‘Joint Sword 2024 B’,” said one Taiwanese official.

The US had warned Beijing against responding to Lai’s speech with manoeuvres. “There is no justification for a routine annual celebration to be used as a pretext for military exercises,” a senior US official said last week.

Taiwan’s defence ministry called China’s move “irrational and provocative behaviour” and said it had dispatched forces to respond.

The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning sailed through the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines at the weekend, according to Taiwan’s defence ministry, suggesting it would participate in the drill east of Taiwan.

Taiwanese officials said a group of ships from China’s coastguard, which helps assert China’s expansive territorial claims and is part of the military command chain, was also operating in waters off its east coast.

China’s exercises in May had included a coastguard component for the first time, but Monday’s involvement appeared larger.

The China Coast Guard said four formations of ships were conducting “law enforcement inspections” and “cruising and keeping control” in waters surrounding Taiwan.

“This is a practical operation under the One China Principle to administer and control Taiwan Island according to the law,” it said.

China’s coastguard also started “comprehensive law enforcement inspections” in the coastal waters of Matsu and Dongyin, Taiwan-controlled islands just off the Chinese coast, which it said would include boarding and inspection of vessels as well as controlling the waters and driving unauthorised ships away.

In most past drills that China framed as responses to events in Taiwan, the PLA introduced some new operational patterns which it then continued to use.

Taiwanese and western military officials have said this has eroded the fragile status quo between the two sides.